To go with my online class Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World, I started a series of posts listing companion materials in pop culture, preferably ones that are a little forgotten, have not received the attention I think they deserve, or take an unusual angle. All the better if they are available online, double-plus for free.
These are the ones I propose to accompany this week’s reading, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Resources are more limited than on previous weeks because the works are still covered by copyright.
If you are in the UK, there is now a legal ebook version. “Bradbury had long held firm against the encroachments of the internet. He believed that “there is no future for e-books, because they are not books. Ebooks smell like burned fuel”, and also dismissed the internet in an interview with the New York Times in 2009, calling it a “big distraction … It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”” Which is interesting, from an author who featured electronic books in his stories over sixty years ago!
You can read a large number of Bradbury’s stories online thanks to Unz.org.
Back in 1950 there was an abridged version of The Martian Chronicles as a radio play on the NBC radio program “Dimension X.” You can download an MP3 version of the first episode from Old Time Radio Downloads (about 6 MB). Plus, the original was sponsored by Wheaties! What’s not to like? Scroll down the list for more episodes.
In 1979, there was a three-part mini-series as a result of a BBC-NBC partnership that gave a somewhat more complete version, but much of the story was changed. You can check it out on DiscloseTV, here is Part 1. Sure, it was less than stellar (ha-ha), but the anticipation of it is what got me to read the original Bradbury stories as a kid.
The Stanley Myers soundtrack of that television series was not bad, though; it can be found on iTunes.
Leonard Nimoy reads the shorts stories “Usher II” and “There Will Come Soft Rains” from The Martian Chronicles.
As a classmate pointed out, a crater on the moon bears the name Dandelion Wine in honour of his renowned short story collection, and British pop singer Elton John based his song “Rocket Man” on the Bradbury story of the same name. (Reference: NNDB.)
The site of the Curiosity rover’s landing on Mars was named Bradbury Landing by NASA in August 2012.
The Reef 